Innholdsfortegnelse for January - February 2016 i Camera

IT’S BEEN a busy few months for Epson as it rolls out its SureColor upgrades to its entire inkjet printer range, and the latest arrival is the SC-P405, a more affordable alternative to the A3+ SC-P600. Epson says the SC-P405 is designed for photography enthusiasts, amateur photographers and “creative hobbyists”. It uses Epson’s UltraChrome HG2 pigmented inkset with eight colours, including red and orange. It also has dedicated channels for the Photo Black and Matte Black inks with automatic selection according to the type of media being used (eliminating switching). Epson says its HG2 pigmented inks are highly resistant to moisture, smudging and fading. The SC-P405 has an eight-channel ‘MicroPiezo AMC’ one-inch wide print head which delivers a minimum droplet size of 1.5 picolitres. The printer’s media handling capabilities include…

When you’re the world’s oldest surviving camera maker and, for around 60 years, you’ve been best known for a classic rangefinder design, there’s always a danger that your past will inevitably get in the way of your future. It nearly happened to Leica. For a while it struggled with finding ways to maintain all its traditional values – the elements that its customers expected and wanted – with the pressing need to remain relevant in a dramatically changing technological world. A manifestation of this struggle was the ill-fated attempt to make a digital capture back work on a 35mm SLR. In theory, a nice idea; in practice, a deeply flawed one. We could also mention the original M8, but perhaps we shouldn’t. Then Leica realised that its core values don’t…

Launched in 2011 by UK-based Caroline Kenyon and her team, the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year arose out of years of commissioning top quality food photography for their food PR company and wondering why there were no awards to celebrate this exciting area of photography. With a top prize of $10,000, the awards are open to all. The categories, which seek much more than just pretty pictures of food on a plate, include Food for the Family, Food in the Field, Marks & Spencer Food Adventures, unearthed Food in Film and much more. Finalists fly in from around the globe each spring to attend the champagne reception and see their work exhibited in the world-famous Mall Galleries in London. “We are very proud of our strong Australian connections”…

The Canon Pixma PRO-10S is the upgraded version of the PRO-10 model which was released around two years ago. Apart from improved connectivity to remote devices and cloud services, the new model essentially remains unchanged in hardware operation and print performance. Pigment printers have made significant advances, but gloss differential and bronzing on gloss/ semi-gloss media have been a lingering problem, especially with black and white prints because of high contrast edges. Canon (and Epson with the R2000) has largely overcome this situation by introducing a gloss (or chroma) optimiser cartridge that spreads a clear solution over the image to ‘fill in the holes’ or overcoat clear areas. This feature alone gives the Pixma PRO-10S a distinct advantage, yet this is one feature among many. The contents of the well-packed…

THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, here listed in price order within each brand. The published prices are mostly supplied by the distributors as recommended retail prices (RRPs). However, some distributors are no longer supplying RRPs to the media so it has become necessary to determine an ‘estimated street price’ derived from the range of prices for a model published by retailers. Where this has been necessary, the letter ‘E’ appears at the start of the entry. A dot appearing in a column indicates that the feature is available on the camera model listed. Where a specification or product detail hasn’t yet been published or confirmed, the letters TBA (to be announced) or TBC (to be confirmed) are used. If a feature is irrelevant…

THEY’RE A BUSY bunch over at Leica at the moment, and the latest new product announcement is a new version of the digital M rangefinder camera which, the company says, “stands for the M-Philosophy in its purest form”. The new M Typ 262 is built around Leica’s philosophy of “Das Wesentliche, which translates as “the essential” and means, in this case, a camera stripped of a number of features, mostly notably video recording and live view. The idea of removing live view is that you have to use the Typ 262’s optical viewfinder which is, after all, the essence of a classic rangefinder camera. The elimination of these features allows for a simpler menu – now comprising just two pages – and what was the live view button now provides…

IT’S GROWN INTO the world’s biggest international competition for sports and action photography, attracting a huge variety of truly remarkable images. Held every three years, the Red Bull Illume Image Quest is on again, and you have until 31 March to submit your entries. The 2013 competition attracted a total of 28,257 images from 6417 photographers representing 124 countries and was won by German photographer, Lorenz Holder, for his remarkable picture of snowboarder Xaver Hoffmann photographed next to a giant satellite dish. In 2016 entries are invited in 11 categories – Close Up, Energy, Enhance, Lifestyle, Masterpiece by Yodobashi, New Creativity, Playground, Sequence by Sony, Spirit, Wings and Mobile. The Mobile category is new for this year and recognises the rise in the use of smartphone and tablet photography. Photographers…

LET’S FACE IT, if you have the budget for Leica’s top-of-the-line digital rangefinder camera, you might want to spend a bit more and create a personalised finish. Leica has now added the M Typ 240 to its à la carte program, which allows you to select the finish used on the metal parts, the badging design and the leather trim. The body colour options are black, chrome or matte black; you can have a classic script ‘Leica’ logo on the top plate or elect not to have the red dot badge. Leather trim options include a selection of colours and a choice of textures, including lizard or ostrich. Matching straps are available. The á la carte version of the M Typ 240 comes with a bigger, 2.0 GB buffer memory…

WITH LEICA’S Q in high demand (taking even its maker by surprise), Sony has responded with a significantly upgraded version of its RX1R. Still fitted with a Zeiss Sonnar T* 35mm f2.0 fixed lens, the new RX1R II steps up to the same 43.6 megapixels (total) full-35mm ‘Exmor R’ CMOS sensor as the A7R II and also has the latter’s hybrid contrast/ phase-detection autofocusing system. Consequently, the sensor employs 399 phase-difference-detection AF points (along with 25 contrast-detection points) to give wide-area coverage and allow continuous shooting at 5.0 fps with focus tracking. Also new is a variable optical low-pass filter (LPF) arrangement with three settings (Off, Standard and High) for prioritising either image resolution or the correction for moiré pattern. In simple terms, the Sony system employs a pair of…

We’ve noted on a number of occasions now about just how quickly Panasonic reacts to consumer feedback with its Lumix mirrorless cameras. Perhaps mostly notable was the upgrading of the GM1 to the GM5 with just about every item on reviewers’ wish lists turning up on the later model. When the GX7 was launched in August 2013, it already ticked a whole lot of boxes for a lot of photographers, but regardless Panasonic has gone ahead and made it better anyway… a whole lot better. Incidentally, the differences between the two models are such that the GX7 remains available. The classic rangefinder-type styling has been retained which is not surprising because everybody liked it the first time around, but now it’s quite a bit bigger – giving a more purposeful…

ROUND 4 WINNER James Vodicka SYDNEY THE WINNER OF the fourth round of the Australian Teenage Photographer Of The Year competition is 18-year-old James Vodicka from Sydney. The images in his eye-catching portfolio have all been taken at beaches around Sydney or on the NSW Central Coast. James says his passion for photography has been fuelled by his love of the ocean which “…continues to push me to create inspiring photographs... “For me, photography is not just a way to capture the world, but a way to share my world with others. I am always looking for new angles, new locations and new shots to attempt. It is on the beaches of Sydney, at ridiculous hours of the morning, that I have learned, made mistakes, experimented and improved to become…

WINNER Convalescing after an accident, regular entrant Ron Johnson has had plenty of time to sit in his garden resting, but that hasn’t stopped him taking lots of photographs, including this great macro shot of a spider lunching on a fly. Ron used a Nikon D7100 equipped with a Sigma 150mm macro lens. DO YOU WANT TO WIN? Fujifilm Australia generously supplies the prizes for each issue’s successful entrants to the Showcase. Entrants have the choice of specifying either film or a memory card (please specify on the entry coupon or indicate your preference if entering via email). The grand prize is a Fujifilm FinePix S4200 digital camera (or the equivalent should it be replaced in the meantime) which has a 14 megapixels CCD sensor and a 30x optical zoom…

CANON SAYS IT has listened to the demands of professional photographers and designed an A2 format photo printer that’s compact enough to fit on a desktop. The new Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000 ticks a lot of boxes for pros and enthusiast-level shooters, and slots between the top-of-the-range PIXMA model, the PRO-1, and the floor-standing large format imagePROGRAF models. It employs a newly-developed pigmented inkset called Lucia PRO, which comprises 12 colours to give an extended colour gamut and smoother gradations. Canon states that the PRO-1000’s increased colour gamut represents 110 percent of the PRO-1’s on lustre or gloss paper and 119 percent on matte papers. The Lucia PRO inkset comprises Photo Black and Matte Black – using separate channels – plus Grey and Photo Grey to give enhanced B&W printing. It…

IN A SERIES of recent new product announcements, Lexar has introduced higher speed memory cards in the SD, CF and XQD formats, with some also featuring higher storage capacities. Lexar’s latest addition to its SDXC card line-up is a 128 GB device with UHS-II Speed Class 3 support giving a read transfer speed of up to 300 MB/second and a write speed of up to 260 MB/second. The new Professional 2000x SDXC UHS-II card is primarily designed to meet the demands of recording 4K (or 3D) video, but is obviously also suited to use in the latest generation of ultra-high resolution D-SLRs and mirrorless cameras. It’s accompanied by a compact SD UHS-II reader and is priced at $599 which includes a lifetime copy of Lexar’s ‘Image Rescue’ software. Also designed…

IF YOU’RE LOOKING for something a bit different to carry around your camera gear, the Italian-designed and made Barber Shop range of premium-quality bags may be just what you’re looking for. There’s a choice of 11 styles and these bags are all hand-crafted from selected Italian leather and fabrics in the small Italian town of Bassano del Grappa, in the province of Vicenza in north-eastern Italy, an area which is particularly known for its fine leather. Importantly, the Barber Shop bags are designed to look more like everyday bags rather than purpose-built camera bags, so they provide some anonymity as well as protecting your valuable gear. The range extends from the ‘Pageboy’, which is a small messenger-style bag, up to the ‘Quiff’ which is a larger, traveller-style bag (you’ll note…

The Picture The road from Queenstown to Glenorchy in New Zealand follows Lake Wakapitu and continues along an unsealed section as far as the Dart River. It passes through an area called Paradise. Paradise by name can be paradise by nature and, when the road sign indicates “Paradise – No Exit” it’s an invitation to try to find something to illustrate the name. The Photographer Writer and photographer Trevern Dawes has the rare distinction of being a contributor to the very first issue of this magazine when it was launched back in June 1979. He is still as passionate about photography now as he was then, and continues to write about many areas of image-making and taking pictures for both books and magazine articles. His many ventures into publishing have…

Epson’s EcoTank inkjet printers reverse the customary printer/ ink strategy. Small and expensive cartridges are replaced by a continuous ink supply from much bigger user-filled tanks, but the initial purchase price of the printer goes up. Apart from offering a new approach, a prime objective must be to make a sizeable dent in the sale of generic inks in the form of disposable compatible cartridges, refill cartridges or continuous bulk ink systems. The EcoTank printers’ continuous ink system is not a new concept. Bulk ink supplies linked to replacement cartridges have existed as ‘alternatives’ to genuine ink cartridges for some time. They are promoted as “continuous”, but do require reset procedures when ink levels expire. Epson’s system is truly continuous and is direct to the print head without intermediate cartridges,…

THIS CHECKLIST is designed to allow direct comparisons between different camera models, here listed in price order within each brand. The published prices are mostly supplied by the distributors as recommended retail prices (RRPs). However, some distributors are no longer supplying RRPs to the media so it has become necessary to determine an ‘estimated street price’ derived from the range of prices for a model published by retailers. Where this has been necessary, the letter ‘E’ appears at the start of the entry. A dot appearing in a column indicates that the feature is available on the camera model listed. Where a specification or product detail hasn’t yet been published or confirmed, the letters TBA (to be announced) or TBC (to be confirmed) are used. If a feature is irrelevant…